The format of vehicle registration plates in Russia (Russian (singular): автомобильный номер) has changed since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Soviet plates prior to 1982 were white-on-black. They had combination of four digits, grouped by two and three Cyrillic letters in smaller type. Rear plate was square with letters located below the numbers. From those letters, first two indicated the region. For example, the combination 75-63 КЛЖ referred to a car from the Kaliningrad Region. After 1982 a new black-on-white format for newly registered cars was adopted. The 1982 format differentiated privately owned from government owned cars and trucks (virtually all vehicles used for business, as all businesses belonged to the government). The government owned vehicles retained the NNNN LLL scheme (the digits were no longer grouped by two and all characters were the same size) and the rear plate was square on trucks and buses/coaches but oblong on passenger cars, while private vehicles used L NNNN LL (with a smaller-sized first letter - for example, c 5969 ME on a van fom the Moscow Region) and invariably oblong format. The last two letters indicated regions or large cities. Largest cities usually had several two-letter codes to account for a larger number of cars. For example, the city of Kiev used КИ and ХТ codes while the Kiev Oblast' region (excluding the city itself) used КХ. The use of Cyrillic characters meant that in some cases replacement plates with characters looking like Latin characters had to be temporarily issued to vehicles going abroad.
The current format uses a letter followed by 3 digits and two more letters. To improve legibility of the numbers for Russian cars abroad, only a small subset of Cyrillic characters that look like Latin characters are used (12 letters: А, В, Е, К, М, Н, О, Р, С, Т, У, Х). Finally, the region number (77, 97, 99, 177, 197, and 199 for Moscow, 78, 98, and 178 for Saint Petersburg, etc.) and letters "RUS" are included, as well as the national flag (the flag was not used on some of the earliest plates of this format). There is a different format for trailers (2 letters and 4 digits).
The standard size for the license plate is 520 mm by 110 mm.
Some vehicles, like trolleybuses, are not required to have license plates, because they can not leave the network they operate on and can be identified by number that is painted and is given by local public transport authority. Trucks and buses generally have their licence numbers repeated in large letters on the rear of the vehicle for easier identification (a practice continued from Soviet days), although they also bear licence plates. Some autonomous regions are not required to have the flag on the licence plates.
Vehicles used by certain organisations or categories of persons carry special plates:
Special plates in the above four categories never carry the Russian flag.
There are special series (usually numbers starting with A) reserved for government officials (for example, A 001 AA usually belongs to the governor of the region). The license plates for federal government officials originally had a larger flag instead of the regional code but this type has now been withdrawn as well.
Rich businessmen, prominent politicians and crime lords often use para-legally acquired special licence plates (government or police) to get preferential treatment from the transport police and as a status symbol. Often this is used in conjunction with a flashing siren, the Society of blue buckets is a leading opposition movement to this trend.
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As per GOST provision, only 1,726,272 combinations may be issued within one administration unit. In certain regions, the amount of vehicles exceeds that number, and the combination may not be reused after a vehicle was taken off the registration. All this creates an issue of running out of numbers.
A short-term solution was introducing more codes for those regions. Thus, some regions have 2 codes issued to them, Perm Krai and city of St. Petersburg have 3, Krasnoyarsk Krai and Moscow Oblast both have 4, and the city of Moscow has 6 codes. But this does not fully solve the problem, as the authorities may eventually run out of regional codes because any code containing three-numeral code with any first numeral except for 1 will not fit without changing the standardized layout of the plate.
Introduction of new style license plate is being considered as a future solution.
001 - Great Britain
002 - Germany
003 - Canada
004 - USA
005 - Japan
006 - Spain
007 - France
008 - Belgium
009 - Greece
010 - Denmark
011 - Italy
012 - Luxembourg
013 - Netherlands
014 - Norway
015 - Turkey
016 - Australia
017 - Austria
018 - Algeria
019 - Egypt
020 - Rwanda*
021 - Argentina
022 - Afghanistan
023 - Myanmar (the former Burma)
024 - Bolivia
025 - Brazil
026 - Burundi
027 - Ghana
028 - Bangladesh
029 - Guinea
030 - Zambia
031 - Peru
032 - India
033 - Indonesia
034 - Jordan
035 - Iraq
036 - Iran
037 - Ireland
038 - Iceland
039 - Cambodia (the former Kampuchea)
040 - Kenya
041 - Cyprus
042 - Congo
043 - Costa Rica
044 - Kuwait
045 - Laos
047 - Lebanon
048 - Libya
049 - Mali
050 - Morocco
051 - Mexico
052 - Nepal
053 - Nigeria
054 - Venezuela
055 - New Zealand
056 - Pakistan
057 - Burkina Faso*
058 - Senegal*
059 - formerly Syria. Now code 133 is used.
060 - Somalia
061 - Sudan
062 - Sierra Leone
063 - Thailand
064 - Tanzania
065 - Tunisia
066 - Uganda
067 - Uruguay
068 - Philippines
069 - Finland
070 - Sri Lanka
071 - Chad
072 - Switzerland
073 - Sweden
074 - Ecuador
075 - Ethiopia
076 - Angola
077 - Democratic Republic Congo (the former Republic Zaire)
078 - Colombia
079 - Cameroon
080 - Guinea-Bissau
081 - Portugal
082 - Bulgaria
083 - Hungary
084 - Vietnam
086 - Poland
087 - Korean People's Democratic Republic (Northern Korea)
088 - Cuba
089 - Mongolia
090 - China
091 - Romania
092 - formerly Czechoslovakia (nowadays Czech Republic (148) and Slovakia (149))
093 - Yugoslavia
094 - Benin
095 - Gabon
096 - Guyana*
097 - Mauritania
098 - Madagaskar*
099 - Malaysia
100 - Niger*
101 - Singapore
102 - Togo*
103 - Central African Republic (code 106 used earlier)
104 - Jamaica*
105 - the Yemen Republic
106 - formerly Central African republic. Now code 103 is used.
107 - Palestine
108 - Nicaragua
109 - Mozambique
110 - Equatorial Guinea
111 - Sovereign Military Order of Malta (earlier code 111 belonged to Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon))
112 - Malta
113 - Cabo Verde
115 - Zimbabwe
116 - United Arab Emirates
117 - Côte d'Ivoire*
118 - Namibia
119 - formerly Republic of South Africa. Now code 137 is used.
120 - Oman
121 - Qatar
122 - formerly Arab League. Now code 503 is used
123 - formerly Liechtenstein
124 - Southern Korea
125 - Chile
126 - Panama (earlier code 126 belonged to UNESCO; see code 512)
127 - Israel
128 - Macedonia (earlier code 128 belonged to EU)
129 - Albania
130 - formerly international organizations
131 - Holy See (Vatican)
132 - Lithuania
133 - Syria (code 059 used earlier)
134 - Estonia
135 - Latvia
136 - Bahrain
137 - the republic of South Africa (code 119 used earlier)
138 - Armenia
139 - formerly Georgia. Now code 158 is used.
140 - Saudi Arabia
141 - Slovenia
142 - Uzbekistan
143 - Kyrgyzstan
144 - Croatia
145 - Azerbaijan
146 - Ukraine
147 - Moldova
148 - Czech Republic
149 - Slovakia
150 - Belarus
151 - Tajikistan
152 - Turkmenistan
153 - Kazakhstan
154 - Guatemala
155 - Bosnia and Herzegovina
156 - Eritrea
157 - Paraguay*
158 - Georgia (code 139 used earlier)
159 - Brunei-Darussalam
160 - Gambia
161 - Vietnam
162 - Mauritius
163 - Dominican Republic
164 - Montenegro
165 - South Ossetia
166 - Abkhazia
499 - Eurocommission (code 502 used earlier)
500 - European bank for Reconstruction and Development
501 - formerly UN Information Centre
502 - formerly Eurocommission. Now code 499 is used.
503 - Arab League (جامعة الدول العربية)
504 - International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
505 - International Monetary Fund (IMF)
506 - International Organization for Migration
507 - International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
508 - International Committee of the Red Cross
509 - International Finance Corporation (IFC)
510 - United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)
511 - United Nations (UN)
512 - United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); code 126 used earlier.
514 - International Bank for Economic Complementation
515 - International Investment Bank
516 - The Intersputnik International Organization of Space Communications
517 - International Centre of Scientific and Technical Information
518 - International Scientific and Technical Centre
520 - International Labour Organization
521 - The Interelectro International Organization for Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation in Electrical Industry
522 - Coordination Centre of the Intergovernmental Commission for Cooperation in Computing Machinery
523 - Executive Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States
524 - European Space Agency
525 - Eurasian Patent Organization
526 - earlier Taipei-Moscow Coordination Commission for Economic and Cultural Cooperation
527 - The Headquarters for Coordination of Military Cooperation of the state-participants of the Commonwealth of Independent States
528 - Interstate Bank
529 - Eurasian Economic Community (earlier - Integration Committee of the Eurasian Economic Community)
530 - International Research Institute of Management Problems
531 - Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTA)
532 - Intergovernmental Statistical Committee of the CIS
533 - Secretary of Council of Interparliamentary Assembly of state-participants of the Commonwealth of Independent States
534 - Eurasian Development Bank (EDB)
535 - The Intergovernmental Foundation for Educational Cooperation of the CIS
900 - Honorary consuls and offices headed by them.
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